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				 <h2>Leeds and its History</h2>
 					
 				<img src="images/LeedsMill.jpg" height="300px" align="right" />
 

				<p>Since its first recorded mention in the Domesday Book of 1086, 
				Leeds has been recognised as an important centre of trade for the Yorkshire region. 
				From beginnings as a simple market town in Middle-Ages rural Britain Leeds had, 
				by the Tudor period, established itself as an important merchant town, 
				manufacturing woollen textiles, with continental trading links via the Humber Estuary. 
				At one point as much as fifty percent of Englands total exports passed through Leeds. 
				The towns importance as a transport and trading hub encouraged a three-fold growth in population between the late seventeenth and late eighteenth centuries, 
				from 10,000 inhabitants to around 30,000.</p>


				<p>More impressive than this however was the radical growth of the town during the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, 
				catalysed by extensive improvements to the existing river-borne transport network and the introduction of the railway, 
				including the world's first commercial railway, the Middleton Railway, which was used primarily for transporting coal into the centre of Leeds. 
				Other industries that flourished at the time were the numerous textile-based industries as well as the manufacture of industrial machinery, 
				chemicals and the more mundane items such as leather and pottery. In 1893, 
				with a population now totalling over 330,000, Leeds was granted city status.</p>


				<p>As with most of Britains industrial centres, 
				Leeds began to fall into decline in the twentieth century, 
				and suffered from the decline of the woollen industry. 
				However, aided by the student bodies of the citys two large universities supplying 
				some ten percent of the metropolitan population and with a thriving tertiary industrial sector, 
				the city of Leeds now stands proudly as one of the countrys eight Core Cities.</p>

 

				<h2>Interesting districts of the city include: </h2>

 

				<h3><a name="Armley">Armley</a></h3>

				<p>A major contributor to the economic success of nineteenth century Industrial Leeds, 
				this area of the city was most famous for the Armley Mills, 
				the world’s largest wool Mill when it was built in 1788 it now operates as a museum showcasing Leeds’ industrial history. 
				Armley is also notable for the number of important Yorkshire textile magnates, such as Benjamin Gott, who originated from this area of Leeds. 
				Despite these claims to fame and the fact that Armley contains a large number of attractive Victorian buildings, 
				including many churches and schools, the area is now known mainly for its prison, HMP Leeds, ‘Armley Gaol’ to locals. 
				The prison was built in 1847 and, despite modern expansion and redevelopment, retains the forbidding character originally imposed by its initial design.</p>

 

				<h3><a name="Headingley">Headingley</a></h3>
				
				<p>According to popular local mythology the modern suburb of Headingley was, 
				as far back as 250BC, the site of a village used by local Celtic tribes to meet and discuss matters of importance. 
				Traditionally, elders would meet under a huge oak tree and where the last one fell in 1941 a pub, ‘The Original Oak’, was built. 
				The village was incorporated in the expansion of industrial Leeds in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and became a 
				popular suburb with the rich who sought to escape the grime of the inner city. In modern times, due to its proximity to the city 
				and the campuses of Leeds’ two large universities, as well as its large town houses, Headingley has become popular primarily with 
				students who also meet frequently where the Celts once did… as well as in any one of the many other pubs, bars and clubs in the area. 
				Headingley is more nationally famous for its sports stadium, home to Yorkshire’s county cricket team as well as Leeds’ own Rugby Union and Rugby League teams.</p>

 

				<h3><a name="Horsforth">Horsforth</a></h3>
					
				<p>During the late nineteenth century Horsforth, situated some six miles from Leeds, 
				was considered to be the largest village in the United Kingdom but in 1974 was amalgamated officially as a suburb of the city of Leeds. 
				Horsforth is another of the local areas recorded in the Domesday Book and was named, and indeed built, 
				after a river-crossing point of the River Aire that could be easily traversed by horses was discovered. 
				This made the village an important transport hub for those seeking to cross the river, particularly local wool merchants. 
				Horsforth remained a small agricultural community until the mid-nineteenth century when it began to expand more rapidly with the rest 
				of industrialising Leeds. The village was also at one time famous for its stone exports, helping to supply the construction of medieval Kirkstall 
				Abbey as well as providing materials for the seafront at Scarborough. Despite also housing a number of important textile mills and 
				with its sophisticated transportation network, Horsforth was always more useful as a subservient, almost sub-urban, ‘dormitory town’ 
				area of Leeds and never achieved formal town-status before its incorporation into the city. Today Horsforth is popular with professionals 
				seeking to escape the city, perhaps a modern equivalent of Victorian Headingley, and it is home to Leeds Trinity & All Saints.</p>


 

				<h3><a name="Kirkstall">Kirkstall</a></h3>
	
				<p>Famous primarily for its twelfth century Cistercian Abbey, 
				Kirkstall was also historically an important centre of industry. 
				Lying only two miles from the centre of Leeds, and edged by the bank of the River Aire, 
				Kirkstall is home to the recently closed Kirkstall Forge and a number of printers.
				 The forge, which was founded in the thirteenth century by the monks of Kirkstall Abbey, 
				 lays claims to have been the longest continually operated industrial site in Britain and is currently awaiting redevelopment. 
				 Today, due to its proximity to the Headingley and city university campuses, and also no doubt partly due to Headingley’s overcrowding, 
				 Kirkstall is becoming an area increasingly popular with students.</p>


 

				<h3><a name="Roundhay">Roundhay</a></h3>
				
				<p>Roundhay is one of Leeds’ most popular and prosperous suburbs, 
				situated north-east of the city centre. It boasts the largest inner-city park in England, 
				he aptly named Roundhay Park, a site second only in size in Europe to Munich’s Englischer Garten, 
				and is now one of the most affluent areas of modern Leeds. Roundhay is historically famous for relatively little 
				in comparison to some areas of the city but is notable for the fact that it was the shooting location of the world’s 
				oldest surviving film, 1888’s ‘Roundhay Garden Scene’, and that it was also the site of the first aircraft landing in Leeds.</p>    
				
				
				For more information Visit <a href="http://www.leedstrinity.ac.uk/departments/history/victorian_studies/whyleeds/pages/leedsanditshistory.aspx" style="color:blue">Here</a>
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